I finally found my way last week to see a game at the new Braves stadium in Cobb County.
The team stinks, but the stadium is first-class. The seats were comfortable, the lighting wasn’t harsh and food was good.
And yet, sitting there I had a difficult time getting beyond this thought: “The poor taxpayers of Cobb County got screwed!”

Indeed, the deal to abandon the “new” Turner Field downtown (a field one critic pointed out was not as old as Miley Cyrus) and decamp to Cobb was done in secret by that county’s board of commissioners’ chairman. The chairman — and eventually the entire county government — violated all kinds of government ethics, public meeting laws and transparency rules to do the deal for the stadium.
The county eventually put in over $400 million (yes million) for the stadium and infrastructure, an amount that was never voted on by its citizens. If there was any justice, the chairman who led that debacle was booted out of office in the last county election.
But this wasn’t the first time a Georgia government pissed away taxpayer money to build a stadium. Gwinnett County spent $64 million for the Braves Triple-A team stadium deal a few years ago, a move that sent the county into a financial tailspin when all the promised “new development” that was supposed to follow didn’t happen.
And Atlanta has just finished building the new Mercedes-Benz football stadium for the Falcons, a move that will reportedly total over $700 million in public subsidies. All to abandon the young 25-year-old Georgia Dome.
This is nothing but corporate welfare and crony capitalism for the uber-wealthy.
The Braves are owned by a multi-billion-dollar company (Liberty Media valued at over $13 billion). Their highest paid player, Matt Kemp, makes over $21 million per year while player Freddie Freeman makes over $20 million. No Braves player makes less than $500,000 per year.
The Falcons are owned by Arthur Blank, owner of Home Depot, whose wealth is said to be over $3 billion. Quarterback Matt Ryan makes over $23 million per year while receiver Julio Jones makes nearly $14 million.
These aren’t poor people. These are extremely wealthy corporations that are having their businesses heavily subsidized by taxpayers through secretive, insider deals with local governments. (And tell me please, why didn’t people get just as upset about that abuse of the public trust as they are about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem?)

None of this is new, of course. But it’s about to get even bigger.
Georgia leaders are getting ready to open the state’s checkbook — read taxpayer money — in a bid to lure Amazon’s second headquarters to Atlanta.
That project is “THE” economic development deal of the decade and every major city in the nation wants it. Georgia is believed to be in the running for the project because of Georgia Tech’s engineering programs and access to a major airport.
But to get such a large project, states will be throwing around millions, maybe billions, of taxpayer dollars. Amazon is promising to bring 50,000 high-paying tech jobs to wherever it decides to locate. That prospect has the political class salivating — what governor doesn’t want to be remembered as the guy who landed such a potentially game-changing development?
But all of that is still corporate welfare. It’s taking taxpayer money and giving it to a wealthy company in the form of special tax breaks and subsidies.

The political/corporate class doesn’t see it that way. The selling point for subsidizing stadiums, auto manufacturing plants or Amazon is that in doing so, new jobs will be created. Over time, the politicians argue that individual taxes paid by employees and the “multiplier effect” will generate more taxes and pay back that initial development.
But it doesn’t always work out that way. Look at the nation’s biggest recipient of corporate welfare, Boeing. In 2013, the mega aerospace firm pressured Washington State to give it a huge $8.7 billion tax incentive to stay in the state under the threat that it would move elsewhere if the politicians didn’t do the deal. But after Washington caved to Boeing, the firm turned around and laid off over 12,000 employees in Washington.
Maybe Washington State learned a bitter lesson, but other states and local governments, including Georgia, continue to dole out corporate welfare. Kia Motors got a $410 million subsidy to locate in Georgia. Shire, an Irish pharmaceutical company, got $211 million of our tax funds.
And that’s just the tip of the corporate welfare iceberg in Georgia. NCR and Engineered Floors both got over $110 million; Caterpillar got over $77 million; Toyo Tire got $71 million; and Anthem Insurance got $51 million. Dozens of other firms, including Coca-Cola, Blue Bird Body, AFLAC, Mitsubishi, Pilgrim’s Pride and a slew of real estate firms have gotten state grants, property tax abatements or tax increment financing from state and local governments.
But the corporate welfare dole doesn’t end with these big, wealthy Fortune 500 firms. Georgia also has special tax credits and incentives for the film and television business, too. Transferable tax credits for up to 30 percent of production costs subsidizes the film industry in the state. It’s an effort to make Georgia the next Hollywood. But as with professional sports teams, those credits subsidize an entertainment industry where million-dollar salaries are common.
For 2017, the Georgia film industry tax credits will cost an estimated $376 million, but despite that high amount of investment, the state has created no mechanism to measure the overall impact. In other words, despite handing out huge subsidies to the film industry, Georgia hasn’t done a cost-benefit analysis to see if the payback has been worth it.

Maybe some of these corporate welfare deals do have a return on investment (although I have serious doubts.) Even so, there’s something smarmy about the state’s “conservative” political leaders ranting about “welfare queens” and cutting back on food stamps while at the same time, they’re handing out billions of taxpayer dollars to wealthy corporations in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and grants.
That’s not a free market, that’s crony capitalism. It’s a system where the political class takes our money and gives it away to mega-rich firms under the guise that it’s an “investment.” (Amazon is worth $430 billion, twice as much as Wal-Mart.)
Georgia taxpayers get ready — state leaders are poised to give millions, if not billions away to Amazon to lure that firm’s new mega-headquarters to Atlanta.
Let’s call that for what it really is: Corporate welfare that would make Amazon the biggest welfare king in the state, if not the nation.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.

Mike,
I understand what you're saying and I agree with some of it. The Braves and Falcons stadiums (while they are both very cool) have cost the taxpayers a good deal of money and we don't yet know if it will be worth it. The same goes for Amazon if it decides to build a second headquarters here. It may or may not pay off. Hopefully, time will tell.
However, please rethink your stance about the movie industry. Directly from Governor Deal's office as of July 2017, "Gov. Nathan Deal today announced that Georgia-lensed feature film and television productions generated an economic impact of $9.5 billion during FY 2017. The 320 feature film and television productions shot in Georgia represent $2.7 billion in direct spending in the state." Do you know how many people it takes to make 320 feature films and tv shows? Thousands. Most of those people that work on the crews are from the state of Georgia. (Actually some of the actors/actresses are too.) And as a point of fact, we lost $606 million in tax dollars in 2016, so I imagine it will be the same or more for 2017. Yes that's almost twice as much. However, at $2.7 billion in direct spending, I think we'll be ok.

But even if there is a ROI, is it fair for the state to pick winners and losers by handing out special tax breaks to one industry, but not others? And with the film industry, that is a lot of vapor, not much of a physical plant in place. If another state decides to up the ante, it could all go away overnight without much left behind but unemployed workers.

I understand what you're saying about the fairness of offering it to one industry and not others and I think that is a valid point. However, please offer me some examples of other industries that have produced that kind of money. Also, you are incorrect about there not being much of a physical plant in place. Many production companies have settled here. Ever heard of Pinewood studios, Screen Gems or Tyler Perry studios? That's just to name a few. Many states over the years have offered incentives to entice film production companies, but few did what the state of Georgia has done. Many studios have settled here and Georgia is building a base of labor for these companies. Georgia Film Academy is turning out new workers all the time. And, unlike LA or New York, they spend less on labor. Now, that is not to say that our people are getting short changed, but the labor unions in those two cities have made it costly and in some cases impossible to produce films or tv shows. They have guys that are "grandfathered" in which means that they have to be hired, but do very little actual work. So, what you end up with is two crews that you have to pay. One "grandfathered" and one that actually does the work. Do you blame them from wanting to move away from these places? I, for one, am glad they picked Georgia and hope they continue to do so.

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